Several modern European navies have fielded Amphibious Transport
Docks, ships designed to transport amphibious forces into harm's way
while not themselves being major combatants.

The basic idea could be described as a military ferry: there's a
well deck or some other way of loading up landing craft in relative
safety, lots of storage space for troops and vehicles, and some sort
of command centre. Armament is light, and intended only for
self-defence. There will be a helicopter deck, but helicopter
operations aren't the ship's primary purpose.

The Dutch and Spanish navies have built minor variants of the same
core design, which is more or less the Enforcer platform, though
individual ships vary quite a bit. HNLMS Rotterdam displaces 12,750
tonnes, but Johan de Witt (nominally of the same class) displaces
16,800; the Spanish field Galicia and Castilla, each at 13,900
tonnes.

Meanwhile the Royal Navy has Albion and Bulwark, at 19,560 tonnes
each. One would think that a bigger ship would be more capable. But:

We don't know just what's meant by "vehicles" in each case, so there's
clearly room for argument there; a tank, even the little BvS 10 Viking
APC used by the Royal Marines and the Dutch Korps Mariniers, is bigger
than a Land Rover. But what does Bulwark do so differently to take
up all that extra tonnage?

Bulwark is full of great wide passages so that troops in combat gear
can move around freely; I haven't been aboard Johan de Witt, but the
few photos I've seen look pretty similar.

I don't know about construction standards; if Bulwark is built to be
a bit more survivable, that might account for the difference. (One
might think this would be automatic for any military ship, but
obviously not for logistics vessels that aren't expected to fight; on
the other hand, the Americans' new Littoral Combat Ships are
explicitly designed not to be able to survive major hits, but to be
abandoned if they take one, the idea being that with remote vehicles,
air assets and long-range weapons they should never have to sail into
harm's way themselves. But that's a separate argument made much more
cynically by
people other than me.)

As I'm writing an article on spaceship wargaming at he moment I've been looking into naval terminology, so I can comment on it, apropos the use of same in SF settings, and the navy is a law unto itself: in what it does, chooses to construct and how it organizes its assets..

Classes in common service range from SPACE FIGHTERS up to BATTLE STATIONS. Except for the last, TECHJARGON is seldom used to characterize them. Instead, most have type names that could have been found at the Battle of Jutland (e.g., BATTLE CRUISERS).

Even though the earliest interplanetary exploration, in the late 20th century CE, made extensive use of automated, crewless spacecraft, these seldom appear as Combat Spacecraft. This is odd, because not only would use of drones reduce casualty lists, but it would save on the cost and bulk of life-support. But who wants to see, or read about, battles between drones? (See also ROBOTS.)

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